Russian cosmonauts Kotov and Ryazansky start ISS spacewalk

Two Russian cosmonauts who last month carried the Olympic torch into open space for the first time began a spacewalk on Friday to replace equipment on the outside of the International Space Station. The work on the space station is due to take seven hours, said a representative of Russia’s Mission Control Center.

The cosmonauts, Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, are tasked with installing equipment on the hull of the space station including high-resolution cameras to photograph the earth and a foothold for use in future spacewalks. They will also detach an old experiment module and throw it overboard into open space.

The cosmonauts exited the Pirs airlock on the Russian side of the space station and were wearing Russian Orlan-MK space suits.

NASA astronauts aboard the space station conducted two spacewalks last Saturday and Monday to fix a failed pump that regulates the station’s internal temperature. The spacewalk on Friday is Kotov’s fifth and Ryazansky’s second.see more